Unfortunately, I think that is why the book left me angry. And readers do get to know them better than any other adult in the novel. There is just something sweet about this family. Mainly through dialogue, the grandparents become fully fleshed characters that you can't help loving and admiring. The book alternates between focusing on the past-Sal's new life, her friendships, her memories, her emotions-and the present, the road trip. Though Sal is better at spotting the signs than Phoebe herself. (Readers also hear of other friends-classmates-including a boy named Ben.) Phoebe's life is also becoming something of a mess. She is telling the story of her new friend, her classmate, her almost-neighbor: Phoebe. The trip is enlivened by Sal's storytelling. I can't honestly say how I would have interpreted the text as a kid. (Sal's world is upset when her Dad moves them to a new town after learning that the mom wouldn't be coming back.) But much is left a mystery for the reader. That's what readers are told, and, as an adult I connected the dots early on. They are on their way to 'see' Sal's mother. Sal-the heroine-is on a road trip with her grandparents (Gram and Gramps). On the other hand-as an adult-I couldn't help finding it a beautiful and compelling story. So at least you were making an informed decision before you got swept up in the story and invested a part of yourself in it. There was a time I thought all sad books should be labeled. On the one hand, it's a book that I know I would have either-as a kid- avoided at all costs (if anyone had dropped hints of how sad it was) OR found myself hating, bitterly regretting having picked it up in the first place. I have lived most of my thirteen years in Bybanks, Kentucky, which is not much more than a caboodle of houses roosting in a green spot alongside the Ohio River.ĭid I love Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons? Yes and no. Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true.

Gramps walk two moons